International Journal of Engineering Science Invention ISSN (Online): 2319 6734, ISSN (Print): 2319 6726

www.ijesi.org Volume 1 Issue 1 December. 2012 PP.32- 43

Design & Development of Rotary Fixture for CNC

N. P. Maniar1, D. P. Vakharia2
2

Mechanical Engineering Department, Dharmsinh Desai University, India Mechanical Engineering Department, Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, India

ABSTRACT : Various areas related to fixture are already been described by renowned authors, still there is
an urgent need to apply all these research works to an industrial application. This paper presents design and development of rotary fixture for real industrial component. The component is Flow TEE body of petroleum refinery. The operations to be performed are front facing, outside diameter turning, grooving, boring and back facing. Actually HMC is the best solution for performing the required operations, but HMC costs around 12.5 million rupees whereas CNC turning centre costs only about 2.5 million rupees. A fixture is designed which can be mounted on CNC turning centre and 10 million rupess are saved in installation cost as these operations can now be performed on CNC turning centre using the designed fixture. Methodology for mass balance of rotary fixture developed by investigators mostly act as post-mortem tool; calculating unbalanced mass after fixture is manufactured. In the present work, a pre-mortem tool is developed to predict unbalanced mass well before manufacturing. The present research also proposes alternate methods for mass balancing of rotary fixture. The paper sets the classical example of integrated approach of design for manufacturing.

Keywords CNC (Computerized numerical control) turning centre, design, HMC (Horizontal machining
centre), mass balancing, rotary fixture

I.

INTRODUCTION

The machine tool industry has undergone sufficient changes as the requirement of user engineering systems changed; first it started with the manufacture of basic general purpose machine tools. These machines though offered higher flexibility were not suitable for mass production owing to longer set up times and the tedious adjustments of machine and tools besides requiring highly skilled operators. With growing need of fast production to meet the requirements of industry, mass production machines are conceived. Hydraulic, tracer control machine tool, special purpose automatic and semi-automatic machines were introduced with the advancement of technology. These machines were highly specialized but inflexible. The use of these machines was with a success for mass production and they have considerably reduced the production costs by way of reduced machining times and labor costs. Because of inflexibility these machine tools could not however be adopted by units involved in small lot and piece production. Because of the above, great need is felt for tools that could bridge the gap between highly flexible general purpose machine tools (which are not economical for mass production) and highly specialized, but inflexible mass production machines. Numerical control machine tools with proper fixture set up have to take up this role very well. And this has excited this research work on design and development of rotary fixture for CNC. The fixture designing and manufacturing is considered as complex process that demands the knowledge of different areas, such as geometry, tolerances, dimensions, procedures and manufacturing processes. While designing this work, a good number of literature and titles written on the subject by renowned authors are referred. All findings and conclusions obtained from the literature review and the interaction with fixture designers are used as guide to develop the present research work. As stated by Koji Teramoto, Masahiko Anasoto and Kazuaki Iwata [1], Fixturing Plan (FP) and Machining Plan (MP) are mutually dependent. Implicit to this conclusion, paper coordinates MP and FP by coupling a fixture design with manufacturing considerations and mass balancing. For this research, a relevant issue when considering requirements, taking this as a general concept, is to make explicit the meaning of two main terms: Functional Requirement (FR) and Constraint (C) [2]. Functional www.ijesi.org 32 | P a g e

Design & Development of Rotary Fixture for CNC

Requirement (FR), as it stated by different authors, represents what the product has to or must do independently of any possible solution. Constraint (C) can be defined as a restriction that in general affects some kind of requirement, and it limits the range of possible solutions while satisfying the requirements. Though some contributions have been made in several areas related to design of fixture like knowledge model for fixture design process, workpiece location, computer aided fixture design, fixture analysis under dynamic machining etc. [3-8], but there is a great deal of urgency and importance to couple all these research works to an industrial application. This paper reviews all these research works and transforms the theoretical knowledge of fixture design to practical application. The balancing of mechanisms is motivated by continuous interest machine designers express in the solution of problems concerning prevention of noise, wear and fatigue generated by the transmission of unbalanced shaking forces and shaking moments to the frames and foundations of machines. It generally confines itself to the shaking force and shaking moment balancing, full or partial, by internal mass redistribution or counterweight addition. However, the complete shaking force and shaking moment balancing problem is very complicated. Often in practice, the problem of mass balancing is limited by full force balancing and partial moment balancing [7]. Methodology for mass balance of rotary fixture developed by investigators mostly act as post-mortem tool; calculating unbalanced mass after fixture is manufactured. In the present work, a pre-mortem tool is developed to predict unbalanced mass well before manufacturing. Step by step procedure for mass balancing of fixture is proposed with the innovative approach of use of Creo Elements/Pro 5.0. The present research proposes alternate methods of IV Quadrant and VIII Quadrant Computer Aided Mass Balancing Method (CAMBM) for mass balancing of rotary fixture. The important details of the part and fixture are included in each fixture design section for clarifying doubts in addition to component drawing & fixture drawing. The research work includes the 3D assembled & exploded view of fixture using Creo Elements/Pro 5.0. Fixture is mass balanced using Pro/Mechanism. The object of work presented here is to develop the study and to provide the optimum conditions of design and development of rotary fixture for CNC.

II. DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT OF ROTARY FIXTURE 2.1 Statement of Problem

Design & development of rotary fixture for machining flow TEE body on CNC turning centre. The operations to be performed are front facing, outside diameter turning, grooving, boring and back facing. The fixture being rotary in nature has to be mass balanced.

2.2 Component details

The methodology proposed for design of a fixture includes the realization of two stages. The first stage represents the knowledge of the objects like part geometry, machining process, functional and detailed fixture design, and fixture resources. The second stage describes the inference process (design and interpretation rules) needed to obtain a first solution for the machining fixture [3]. As a part of first stage, component geometry is discussed here [Fig. 1-3]. The component is Flow TEE body, made up mild steel, weighing 46.5 kg and is one of the components of petroleum refinery. The component is used as a joint or coupler for pipes through which petroleum liquid products flow and get mixed. The component in raw material form is forged, proof machined with 3 mm machining allowance on conventional lathe with 24 inch swing over diameter. The operations to be performed on component, using designed fixture set up, are front facing, outside diameter turning, grooving, boring and back facing.

2.3 Locating and clamping

In machining, work holding is a key aspect, and fixtures are the elements responsible to satisfy this general goal. Usually, a fixture solution is made of one or several physical elements, as a whole the designed fixture solution must satisfy the entire FRs and the associated Cs.

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Design & Development of Rotary Fixture for CNC

Figure 2. 3D view of raw material of component

Figure 1. Finished Component Drawing

Figure 3. 3D view of finished part

Centering, locating, orientating, clamping, and supporting, can be considered the functional requirements of fixtures. In terms of constraints, there are many factors to be considered, mainly dealing with: shape and dimensions of the part to be machined, tolerances, sequence of operations, machining strategies, cutting forces, number of set-ups, set-up times, volume of material to be removed, batch size, production rate, machine morphology, machine capacity, cost, etc. At the end, the solution can be characterized by its: simplicity, rigidity, accuracy, reliability, and economy [2]. Workpiece location in a fixture is significantly influenced by localized elastic deformation of the workpiece at the fixturing points. These deformations are caused by the clamping force(s) applied to the workpiece. For a relatively rigid workpiece, the localized elastic deformations cause it to undergo rigid body translations and rotations which alter its location with respect to the cutting tool. It is therefore important to minimize such effects through optimal design of the fixture layout [4]. S. K. Hargrove and A. Kusiak [5] recognize four general requirements of a fixture: (i) Accurate location of the workpiece, (ii) Total restraint of the workpiece during machining, (iii) Limited deformation of the workpiece, (iv) No machining interference. In addition, as set forth by R. T. Meyer and F. W. Liou [6], dynamic machining conditions occur when a workpart is subject to machining forces that move through the work part or along its surface. A viable fixture designed for a workpart experiencing dynamic machining must ensure: the workpart is restrained for all time, the clamping forces are not too large or small, deterministic positioning, accessibility, stability of the workpart in the fixture while under no external forces, and a positive clamping sequence. Workpiece motion arising from localized elastic deformation at the workpiece/fixture contacts due to machining and clamping forces significantly affect the workpiece location accuracy and hence the machined part quality. The tangential friction force plays an important role in fixture configuration design as it can be utilized to reduce the number of fixture components, thereby the workpiece features accessibility to machining operations and providing a damping mechanism to dissipate input energy from machining forces out of the workpiece/fixture system. Contact problems with friction are generally complicated by the fact that the contact surface can experience slipping, sliding, rolling or tension release depending on the magnitude of the normal and tangential forces at the contact interface [8]. Considering all above mentioned facts, location & clamping is accomplished by using 3 V blocks and latch clamp. The important parts of fixture used here are V block, latch clamp, base plate, vertical plate, adapter plate, locator and rib [Fig. 4-7]. The fixture uses three V blocks to locate and a latch clamp to hold the component. The latch clamp consists of two M 6 bolts to directly clamp the workpiece. The chuck of CNC turning centre will be replaced with complete fixture set up using an adapter plate. The adapter plate holds the same dimensions of chuck plate. The locator locates the vertical plate in correct position with adapter plate. The base plate serves to hold the complete assembly of fixture. The ribs are clamped to base plate and provide the holding arrangement for latch clamp. The fixture rotates with 550 rpm while performing operations on CNC www.ijesi.org 34 | P a g e

Design & Development of Rotary Fixture for CNC

turning centre. The specification of spindle nose of CNC turning centre used in this work is A 2-8, which can carry a weight of 450 kg. The fixture is directly mounted on spindle nose.

Figure 4. 2D drawing of fixture

Figure 5. 3D view of fixture www.ijesi.org 35 | P a g e

Design & Development of Rotary Fixture for CNC

Figure 6. 3D rear view of fixture

Figure 7. 3D exploded view of fixture www.ijesi.org 36 | P a g e

Design & Development of Rotary Fixture for CNC III. COMPUTER AIDED MASS BALANCING METHOD (CAMBM) FOR ROTARY FIXTURE

Methodology developed by most of the researchers mostly act as post-mortem tool, calculating and determining unbalanced mass after fixture is manufactured followed by unbalanced mass removal or counterweight addition. A tool that could predict unbalanced mass during fixture design stage is not yet developed. The present volume of this paper proposes the unique method of use of Creo Elements/Pro 5.0, which would enable prediction of unbalanced mass during design stage well before manufacturing. This approach would be highly useful in the shop floor, saving material cost, increasing the productivity and decreasing the human labor. In this work, fixture is balanced by adding counterweight equal in magnitude and opposite in direction as that of resultant unbalanced mass. The object of the work presented here is to develop the study and to provide the optimum conditions of design, manufacturing, static analysis with force & moment balancing of fixture. As the fixture is asymmetrical, it has to be mass balanced. The fixture rotates around one axis; hence it has to be balanced about other two perpendicular axis. Here x - axis is the axis of rotation. The results and outputs from Creo Elements/Pro 5.0 with solution of balancing are shown below.

3.1 IV Quadrant Computer Aided Mass Balancing Method

Step I: C. G., weight of fixture and offset distance of C. G. from axis of rotation are determined [Fig. 8]. The important results from the above output are as follows: weight of fixture with component, without balancing mass = 233.12 kg. C.G. is offset from axis of rotation in x axis by -130.56 mm, in y axis by -1.11 mm and in z axis by 2.38 mm. Step II: Now the fixture is cut in 4 quadrants about 2 axis, perpendicular to each other and perpendicular to axis of rotation below [Fig. 9]. Step III: The weight and C. G. of fixture in each quadrant are determined. [Fig. 10-13]. Step IV: The above outputs of weight of fixture and C. G. of each quadrant are summarized [Fig. 14, Table 1].

Figure 8. Mechanical Analysis of Fixture

Figure 12. Weight and C. G. of fixture in Quadrant III

Quadrant II

Quadrant I

Figure 13. Weight and C. G. of fixture in Quadrant IV www.ijesi.org 37 | P a g e

Design & Development of Rotary Fixture for CNC

Quadrant III

Quadrant IV

Figure 9. 3D view of fixture in 4 Quadrants

Figure 14. 2D drawing showing summary of weight and C. G. of fixture in all Quadrants Table 1. Summary of C. G. of fixture in all Quadrants Quadran Co-ordinate of tan i t (i) C. G. (mm) (Degree) i xi 1 Figure 10. Weight and C. G. of fixture in Quadrant I 2 3 4 83.09 -103 101.14 82.35 yi 92.04 80.78 77.35 85.71 1.10 -0.78 0.76 -1.04 47.92 38.11 37.41 46.14

Figure 11. Weight and C. G. of fixture in Quadrant II Step V: According to principles of mechanics, F = 0 and M = 0 for mass balancing. The sums of unbalanced mass in horizontal direction FH and in vertical direction FV are calculated [Table 2]. Step VI: Resultant unbalanced mass (R) and its line of action in terms of angle () with x-axis are calculated using parallelogram law of forces [Table 3]. Step VII: Sum of moment of inertia about x axis (mixi2) and that about y axis (miyi2) are calculated [Table 4]. Step VIII: Resultant moment is calculated using principle of perpendicular axis theorem of moment of inertia [Table 5].

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Design & Development of Rotary Fixture for CNC

Table 2. Calculation of resultant mass in horizontal direction (FH) and in vertical direction(FV) FH=xi=miCos FV=yi=miSin Quadrant mi i i (i) (kg) (kg) (kg) 1 2 3 4 38.5 48.09 53.36 43.82 25.79868396 -37.8405504 -42.38538755 30.35986498 -24.06738901 28.57757698 29.67727827 -32.41555988 -31.59859171 -5.75929635 Table 4. Calculation of sum of moment of Inertia about X direction ( mixi2) and that of about Y direction ( miyi2) Quadra nt (i) 1 2 3 Table 3. Calculation of Resultant Force, R FH2 FV2 FH + FV Resultant, R = (FH2 + FV2) tan
2 2

mi (kg) 38.5 48.0 9 53.3 6 43.8 2

mixi2 (kg mm2) 265802.001 9 510186.81 545835.426 7 297166.316 1618990.55 4

miyi2 (kg mm2) 326147.4216 313806.89 319254.0806 321910.6637 1281119.056

579.2392137 kg2 33.16949445 kg2 612.4087082 kg 24.7468929 kg 0.23929876 13.45773737

2

Table 5. Calculation of Resultant Moment, M Ixx = mixi2 Iyy = miyi2 Izz = Ixx + Iyy M = mixi2 + miyi2 = 1618990.554 kg mm2 = 1281119.056 kg mm2 = 2900109.61 kg mm2

Step IX: Having M, R and , the location of C. G. (rcm) of R is determined. M = R rcm2 rcm2 = M / R rcm = 342.33 mm Thus the unbalanced mass is found to be 24.75 kg and its C. G. is situated at an angle of 13.45 o with xaxis at a distance of 342.33 mm in quadrant III. Hence the fixture can be balanced by placing the counterweight equal in magnitude and opposite in direction as that of unbalanced mass.

3.2 VIII Quadrant Computer Aided Mass Balancing Method

Step I: This step is same as in IV Quadrant Computer Aided Mass Balancing Method. Step II: Now the fixture is cut in 8 quadrants around 4 axis at angle of 450 to each other and perpendicular to axis of rotation. Step III: The weight and C. G. of fixture in each quadrant are determined. [Fig. 15-22]. Step IV: The above outputs of weight of fixture and C. G. of each quadrant are summarized [Table 6]. Step V: According to principles of mechanics, F = 0 and M = 0 for mass balancing. The sum of unbalanced mass in horizontal direction FH and in vertical direction FV is calculated [Table 7]. Step VI: Sum of moment of inertia about x axis (mixi2) and that about y axis (miyi2) are calculated [Table 8]. Step VII: Resultant unbalanced mass (R) and its line of action in terms of angle () with x -axis are calculated using parallelogram law of forces [Table 9]. Step VIII: Resultant moment is calculated using principle of perpendicular axis theorem of moment of inertia [Table 10]. Step IX: Having M, R and , the location of C. G. (rcm) of R is determined. M = R rcm2 rcm2 = M / R rcm = 159.11mm

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Design & Development of Rotary Fixture for CNC

Thus the unbalanced mass is found to be 59.78 kg and its C. G. is situated at an angle of 72.22 o with xaxis at a distance of 159.11 mm in quadrant III. Hence the fixture can be balanced by placing the counterweight equal in magnitude and opposite in direction as that of unbalanced mass.

Figure 15. Weight and C. G. of fixture in Quadrant I

Figure 22. Weight and C. G. of fixture in Quadrant VIII Table 6. Summary of C. G. of fixture in all Quadrants
Quadrant (i) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Co-ordinate of C.G. (mm) xi 105.43 6.883 -63.16 -133.13 -132.09 -59.39 59.63 107.13 yi 56.13 123.04 122.57 49.29 -53.18 -110.14 -110.11 -59.26 0.53 17.87 -1.94 -0.37 0.40 1.85 -1.84 -0.55 28.03 86.80 62.73 20.32 21.93 61.66 61.56 28.95 tan i i (Degree)

Figure 16. Weight and C. G. of fixture in Quadrant II

Table 7. Calculation of resultant mass in horizontal direction (FH) and in vertical direction(FV)
Quadrant (i) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 mass mi (kg) 17.82 20.70 20.67 27.38 30.61 22.60 22.77 20.91 FH=xi=miCos i (kg) 15.72967885 1.156174297 -9.468080697 -25.67665437 -28.39510038 -10.72639375 10.84315128 18.2972081 -18.25888192 FV=yi=miSin i (kg) 8.374341968 20.6676864 18.37401284 9.506514638 -11.43198908 -19.89232207 -20.02246164 -10.12127837 56.92255584

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Figure 17. Weight and C. G. of fixture in Quadrant III Table 8. Calculation of sum of moment of Inertia about 2 X direction ( m ix i ) and that of about Y direction 2 ( m iy i ) Quadrant mi mixi2 miyi2 (i) (kg) (kg mm2) (kg mm2) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 17.82 20.7 20.67 27.38 30.61 22.6 22.77 20.91 198077.9409 980.6767623 82456.46635 485272.0831 534076.1815 79714.08946 80964.12921 239980.6596 766787.1672 56143.28036 313374.0211 310533.7793 66519.82226 86568.52056 274156.523 276068.3095 73430.64232 746570.903

Figure 18. Weight and C. G. of fixture in Quadrant IV

Figure 19. Weight and C. G. of fixture in Quadrant V

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Figure 20. Weight and C. G. of fixture in Quadrant VI

Figure 21. Weight and C. G. of fixture in Quadrant VII Table 10. Calculation of Resultant Moment, M Table 9. Calculation of Resultant Force, R
FH2 FV
2

333.386769 kg2 3240.177364 kg2 3573.564133 kg2 59.77929518 kg -3.11752692 72.21546938

2 Ixx = m ix i 2 Iyy = m i yi Izz = Ixx + Iyy 2 2 M = m ix i + miyi

766787.1672 kg mm2 746570.903 kg mm2 1513358.07 kg mm2

FH2 + FV2 2 Resultant, R = (F H + FV2) tan (degree)

3.3

Comparison of Results obtained of two methods used for Mass Balancing

Table 11

Parameters

Unbalanced Mass (kg) Angle at which C.G. of unbalanced mass is situated (degree) Distance at which C.G. of unbalanced mass is situated (mm) Quadrant in which C.G. of unbalanced mass is situated Mass of component (kg) Mass of fixture including mass of component, excluding unbalanced mass (kg) Total mass of fixture including mass of component and unbalanced mass (kg) Actual mass of fixture including mass of component and unbalanced mass (kg) Absolute Error Relative Error Percentage Error

Mass Balancing Method 4 Quadrant 8 Quadrant Method Method 24.75 59.78 13.45 72.22 342.33 159.11 III III 46.5 46.5 183.46 183.46 208.21 233.12 24.91 0.10685 10.685 243.24 233.12 10.12 0.04341 4.341

The above comparison shows that VIII Quadrant method gives more accurate results compared with 4 Quadrant Computer Aided Mass Balancing Method. Percentage error in VIII Quadrant method is reduced by almost 6 % in comparison to IV Quadrant Computer Aided Mass Balancing Method.

IV.

CONCLUSION

An integrated approach of design and mass balancing of rotary fixture has been adopted in this work. This approach is of crucial importance in real manufacturing environment. Actually HMC is the best solution for performing the required operations on part used in this work, but a designer cannot ask industry to replace already existing set up of CNC turning centre with HMC as HMC costs around 12.5 million rupees whereas CNC turning centre costs only about 2.5 million rupees. Here the research work of this paper is proved, 10 www.ijesi.org 42 | P a g e

Design & Development of Rotary Fixture for CNC

million rupees are straight away saved in machine installation cost. In HMC, a tool rotates and component remains stationary, vice versa for CNC turning centre. A designed fixture has the important novel characteristic of performing all operations in a single set up with component rotating and tool stationary, satisfying the essential requirement of CNC turning centre. A simplified, analytical method of use of Creo Elements/Pro 5.0 is proposed to solve the balancing problem. The approach of application of Creo Elements/Pro 5.0 to mass balance the fixture is very useful as it opens the door not only to symmetrical part problems but also to a more general class of problem and difficult tasks such as asymmetrical fixture as is the case in this work. The application of Creo Elements/Pro 5.0 and principles of mechanics used in this work to overcome balancing problem is universal i.e. applicable for any part. The findings of unbalanced mass and its location of C. G. are remarkably same as with experimental results on dynamic balancing machine. This approach of solving the balancing problem is expected to have more flexibility in its application, since it is not sensitive to dynamic conditions. The present research work also proposes Computer Aided Mass Balancing Method (CAMBM) which ease fixture designer from tedious and time consuming work of finding offset distance and C.G. of irregular shape parts and also solving mass balancing problem. Two alternate methods of Computer Aided Mass Balancing are presented and VIII Quadrant Computer Aided Mass Balancing Method is found more accurate with the result of decrease in percentage error by almost 6 % in comparison to IV Quadrant Computer Aided Mass Balancing Method.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors wish to acknowledge the support of Mr. Sudhir Thakar and Mr. Pradip Thanki, Trend Enterprise, Rajkot, Gujarat, India for this research work. The authors also acknowledge the support of Mr. Chetan M. Patel for his input to this research work.

REFERENCES
[1]. [2]. [3]. [4]. [5]. [6]. [7]. [8]. Koji Teramoto, Masahiko Anasoto, and Kazuaki Iwata, Coordinative Generation of Machining and Fixturing Plans by a Modularized Problem Solver, CIRP Annuals, Manufacturing Technology, 47, 1998, 437440. R. Hunter, J. Rios, J. M. Perez, and A. Vizan, A functional approach for the formalization of the fixture design process, International Journal of machine tools and manufacture, 46, 2006, 683697. R. Hunter, A. Vizan, J. Perez, and J. Rios, Knowledge model as an integral way to reuse the knowledge for fixture design process, Journal of material processing technology, 164 165, 2005, 15101518. Bo Li, and Shreyes N. Melkote, Improved workpiece location accuracy through fixture layout optimization, International Journal of machine tools and manufacture, 39, 1999, 871883. S. K. Hargrove, and A. Kusiak, Computer-aided fixture design: a review, International Journal of Production Research, 32, 1994, 733753. R. T. Meyer, and F. W. Liou, Fixture analysis under dynamic machining, International Journal of Production Research, 35, 1997, 14711489. V. Arakelian, and M. Dahan, Dynamic balancing of mechanisms, Mechanics research communication, 27, 2000, 1-6. Ibrahim M. Deiab, and Mohamed A. Elbestawi, Experimental determination of the friction coefficient on the workpiece-fixture contact surface in workholding applications, International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture, 45, 2005, 705-712.

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